Boardgame session: 24th July 2016

We visited Val and Chris for an afternoon of gaming. We started by playing ‘Settlers of Catan’ (SoC), which on reflection, neither Elaine nor I had played for 3 or 4 years! Val plays regularly online so was most familiar with the game, but we soon recalled the rules, and the game played quickly. The final result was a convincing win for Val, followed by Chris, with me trailing in last place. Both Elaine and I came away thinking that we must play SoC more often. It is an excellent game and deserves to be considered a gaming ‘classic’.  I think one of the reasons we have neglected SoC is the components, particularly the assembled board; the hexagonal tiles never sit perfectly within the sea border sections, tiles lift and shift, road counters get knocked about etc. Val and Chris have invested in wooden board specifically designed for SoC, with recesses cut to hold all the tiles and components in place. Brilliant! They also have various expansions, so we look forward to many more SoC games in the future.

Next we played ‘Quilt Show’, a new game to us. The theme of quilting appealed to both Elaine and Val (who have an interest in the area of fabrics, quilting, sewing etc.), but essentially the game has a set building dynamic. Players collect fabrics (in a mechanic similar to that used in Ticket to Ride), which are used to buy quilt panels (different colour and style sets), and these make rectangular quilts which score points, which earns prizes/money in turn end competitions. The game is played over 3 turns, and players can keep unused fabrics and panels for use in latter turns; the player with the most money at the end, wins. The mechanics are nice and simple; the theme works but is not crucial to the game; the components are OK; and the game experience is enjoyable. Val won, followed by Chris, myself and then Elaine. We all enjoyed the game. It is a fairly light game, although some thought needs to go into planning your quilts and hoping that other players don’t buy the key panels you need before you can get to them!

We finished by playing a card game called ‘Parade’. The cards are beautiful and depict the classic drawings of the characters from the Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatters tea party. I truly don’t know how to describe the mechanics of this game; basically the cards form a ‘parade’ and each player adds a card to the ‘parade’, hoping not to acquire previous cards in the parade of the same suite or equal/lower value. The game ends when a player has acquired cards from each of the 6 suites, or if the deck of cards is exhausted. Players count up the values of the cards acquired (with some modifications), and the lowest player wins. The rules are actually quite simple and easy, but the strategy can be quite complex and sometimes you cannot avoid making a play which forces you to collect undesirable cards. I really enjoyed this game (I also won) and I’m sorely tempted to buy it myself. There are other games on the market which utilise a similar mechanic (e.g. Circus Flohcati) which I might get as an alternative.

Off the Painting Table (July 2016)

At the Attack show in Devizes I bought a sprue of Napoleonic Portuguese infantry and I intended to paint these up as Cacadores for use with my Sharp Practice forces. I would have preferred a skirmish-type pose but all the figures on the sprue were in a march attack pose. I augmented these figures with a couple more made from spare Victorix French figures, one of which would be painted as a Portuguese officer. They painted up well, I like the brown uniform colour, and will work on the table (even if they are rather too regimented). I feel I now have most of the figures I need for this rule set; I don’t want any artillery but do require some Spanish guerrillas, and maybe some civilian figures for interest.

As well as painting the Portuguese, I have been assembling my 4Ground Wild West buildings. I’m not showing any pictures because they look exactly like those on the company website, but I must say they are a joy to put together. I get a nice feeling of satisfaction when each building is completed; they look great and the details (opening doors etc.) work well. I now have 4 buildings and plan to buy a few more, but in the meantime I find mixing in my FIW buildings does not look to strange. So, I can now field a reasonable small western town and plan to play a few Wild West games.

Show Report: Attack 2016

My ‘local’ wargames group (DDWG) held their annual show, Attack, this weekend. I attended both days and helped out with the show set-up and clear-up. It is surprising how much effort is required by volunteers to put on an event such as this and I don’t think enough credit is given to organisers who enable wargame shows to function. It is not simply a money generating event but a labour of love and gaming enthusiasm.

I have attended Attack for many years and it remains one of my favourite shows, and I’m not just saying this because I’m a member of DDWG. There are a good number of traders covering a wide range of interests. They seem to have enough space for punters to view their products without the pushing/shoving encountered at other more trade orientated shows (e.g. Salute or Colours). The quality of the demo games is more varied as well; there are a few outstanding eye-catchers but there are more games that are achievable for ordinary gamers. These games could be easily be set up as playable club games at a regular Sunday afternoon meeting. I really like this; eye-candy games are inspirational but I come away thinking that such games could not actually be played as a game. They just would not work.

There are also a decent range of participation games that attract a good number of visitors. This year appeared to have a higher proportion of SciFi games, which did not appeal to me but did seem to excite younger gamers, which is a positive for the hobby. There is a healthy competition aspect to the show, and I must congratulate my friend, Graham, who won the FoW competition using his Russian tank company. Personally I just don’t get FoW, but all the gamers seemed to be enjoying a friendly competitive event, and the quality of the armies on display was excellent.

Finally there is a good Bring & Buy stall. Again, not too crowded. It is possible to actually see the items for sale and the prices seem more ‘reasonable’ compared to my other favourite B&B event (Warfare in Reading in November). I managed to sell my 15mm Samurai army, which I painted years ago but had remained in the box because it was superseded by my purchase of a 28mm Perry Samurai army. Unfortunately my 6mm C19th armies did not sell, although club members manning the stand did report considerable interest. I will take them to Warfare and try again. The sale of my Samurai actually covered the cost of my purchases at Attack, which are shown below:

I bought Machi Koro from the B&B stand. I discovered this game at Games Expo 2016 (see earlier blog post) and was really chuffed to get this great game at a discount price. I purchased a few Wild West buildings from 4Ground and I plan to write a review about this game setting in the near future. I got a box of AWI militia to augment my Musket & Tomahawk forces, plus a sprue of Napoleonic Portuguese infantry for Sharp Practice. I was also tempted to buy a couple of sprues of ECW foot for Donnybrook. I did consider buying the ECW ‘The Kingdom is Ours’ rules after watching the excellent demo/participation game put on by the rules author. I held off because I’m not sure about the sizable order dice holders required for each unit/commander, and I tend to play larger games in 15mm. I probably will change my mind and purchase a set when I attend my next show (Colours in Newbury).

Finally I would thoroughly recommend Attack to all wargamers out there. Devizes may be off the beaten track but parking is free and entry cheap. If you want a less frantic, less pushy, more relaxing and friendly kind of show, then Attack is well worth attending. Sunday is definitely the quieter of the 2 days.

After Action Report; Solo ECW game (Regt of Foote v1 rules) 13 July 2016

Encouraged by my previous two WoR solo games I decided to try another RFCM set of rules; Regiment of Foote (RoFv1). I played the first version of the rules and used 500 point early war ECW armies; a lot of conscripts and pistolier cavalry, with a few veteran Royalist charger cavalry. The terrain was randomly chosen and resulted in a remarkably symmetrical battlefield.

One of the most pleasing aspects of the rules is the pre-game mini-campaign set-up. Each army undertakes a range of activities; marching, camp etc. and suffers or benefits from random events; lost stands/units, improvements in quality etc. This introduces a random element in the final army composition resulting in a degree of imbalance between the armies. The army who marches most is the attacker, and the bigger the difference the greater the imbalance. In my game both sides completed the same number of marches, so the attacker was the Royalists because their final score was closest to zero. The defending Parlimentarian army lost one of their better infantry units plus a medium gun, and 3 other units would arrive late for the battle.

Deployment for both sides was fairly standard; infantry and artillery in the centre and cavalry on each flank. Even with the reductions to the Parlimentarian army, they still out-numbered the Royalists, but the Royalists enjoyed superiority in cavalry particularly having some good quality chargers. On the first Royalist turn they threw well for motivation and action points. On the Right flank the Royalist charger cavalry swept forward into immediate combat with the opposing Parlimentarian pistolier cavalry, and destroyed them swiftly. The Royalist attack on the other flank was more gradual, but the outcome was the same. On no occasion was the pistol fire by the Parlimentarian cavalry sufficient to stop or disrupt the charging Royalists. In the centre the Parlimentarian infantry advanced and this should have proved a problem for their Royalist opponents, but at the crucial time the central Parlimentarian general rolled badly for motivation, and things just ground to a halt. The Parlimentarian ‘late’ units did arrive promptly, but the distance from their generals meant that getting them up to the battleline proved difficult. A similar command problem afflicted the Royalist flank generals, which resulted in them leaving some of their command behind as the assault units charged forwards. This is a common occurance in most RoF games I have played. I think I should try a more patient approach, moving a force as a coherent body, rather than rushing in with just a few units. The game clock reached zero and it was time to calculate the victory points. The result was a clear Royalist victory.

Royalist on right. Red counters denote veteran, yellow denote trained and green denote conscript.

I think RoFv1 is possibly my favourite RFCM set of rules. The mini-campaign is excellent and adds character to the games. The deployment rules generate historical set-ups; the flanks have to be cavalry heavy compared to the centre, which will contain most of the infantry. The battle rules are clear, simple and play fast. There is a good balance between shooting and melee. It can be annoying when a general fails his first motivation (ending his attempts for the turn), or a unit throws a low score for activation. If a force becomes spread out then this happens quite frequently. My main criticism is that reinforcement/late units tend to sit, un-activated, on the baseline because of the distance from the already deployed generals.

Finally, RFCM have published RoF version 2 (2016). I have not purchased a copy myself but have read copies bought by others. I am not impressed. The rules are not a development of version 1 but use a radically different game mechanic and, in my opinion, should therefore have a different title from RoF. It appears to me that the authors have simply transposed their Square Bashing mechanic (which I like for a WW1 setting) on to the ECW period. The battlefield in now divided into square grids and units move in a horizontal/vertical basis. Individual unit sizes are smaller and standardised. Maybe others find this OK, but I was very disappointed when I saw what the authors had done. I was hoping for an improved edition based on version 1, which has many great features, and not a totally changed game mechanic. I should stress that I have not played using the second edition but I cannot see this happening in the near future (sorry). I will be sticking to version 1!

AAR; Solo Wars of the Roses games (Bloody Barons) Early July 2016

Because of a full diary I have not been able to get to a club game for the past month or so, but instead I have played a couple of solo games featuring the Wars of the Roses using Bloody Barons rules by RFCM, 2005. The choice of period was inspired simply by stumbling across my 15mm armies and thinking they looked pretty and had not been out of the box for over a year.

St Albans; set-up (York on the right)

Rather than fight a regular stand-up game, I decided to use the historical scenarios listed at the back of the rules, starting with the 1^st battle of St Albans (1455). The game matched the historical outcome fairly well; the Yorkist centre (Earl of Warwick) broke through the Lancastrian centre in the streets of St Albans and went on to capture the isolated Lancastrian King Henry VI. The Lancastrian left (Earl of Northumberland) and centre (Duke of Somerset) did recover and attacked (and killed) Richard of York! On the other flank both sides matched each other in a draw (Earl of Salisbury versus Clifford). The final victory points score was a draw, but the Yorkists did hold Henry VI, and now Edward Earl of March would take over as the prime York contender for the throne, five years earlier than historically correct.

St Albans; York break through the centre

The game played quicker than I anticipated, so I decided to undertake the second scenario; the battle of Blore Heath (1459). This scenario has a couple of unusual features; the Yorkists have defences and artillery (3 light guns), whilst the Lancastrian right flank is all mounted. The Lancastrian centre (Lord Dudley) and right (Lord Audley) rapidly advanced, but the left flank (Sir Thomas Dutton) remained stationary for almost all the game. The Yorkist guns did well, halting and damaging the leading Lancastrian household unit. The key to the game was the mounted charge by the Lancastrian knights on their right flank. They smashed into the Yorkist command (Sir Thomas Parr); the defences helped the Yorkists to achieve more ‘hits’ but these could not be converted into ‘kills’, whereas the fewer Lancastrian ‘hits’ were all converted into ‘kills’. As a result the Yorkist flank was routed and turned. The Yorkist centre under Earl of Salisbury could not adjust in time because they were under attack from the Lancastrian centre (Lord Dudley), and so the Yorkist line was rolled up! The result was a good win for the Lancastrians, which could have been more decisive if only their left command had managed to move forward!

Blore Heath; set-up (York on the left)

The first game, St Albans, was fairly standard fair; the weakness of the Lancastrian centre and isolation of King Henry VI made the result favour York, but the success of the Lancastrian counter-attack on their left wing forced a drawn result. The second game, Blore Heath, largely turned on a single round of combat as the Lancastrian knights charged in. The result could have gone either way; if the York ‘hits’ were converted into ‘kills’ and/or the Lancastrian ‘hits’ failed to ‘kill’, then the charge would have been repulsed and a Yorkist win may have happened. The York army was saved from an absolute disaster by a combination of a short game length and the failure of the Lancastrian left to advance.

Blore Heath; Lancs knights (top) turn the York line

I like these rules, they play fast and give clear results. I sometimes feel they favour shooting over combat, and many times it feels too hard to convert your ‘hits’ into meaningful ‘kills’. If using cavalry, then combat is the only meaningful choice and it seemed to be devastating. I would be interested to see how mounted knights work in a more ‘open’ battlefield, but they worked (with good dice) even when charging field defences uphill! Artillery was also a surprise and worthwhile, especially when used against good quality troops (don’t waste it firing at Levy troops).

I plan to continue my journey through the historical scenarios at sometime in the future, and the next is the Rout of Ludlow (1459). But it is week until the Attack show at Devizes, where I plan to spend some money, so where I go next in terms of gaming is in the air!